Posts Tagged ‘Moovision’

Check out “Honk If You’re Moovelous,” a guest post that I wrote about directing for Moovision’s What’s Moo? blog. I discuss some of my heartfelt philosophies about directing and an ice cream truck that looks like a cow.

Morena Tan, the winner of the GOURMOO COOKOFF cooking show I directed, also contributed to the site with the aptly titled “Tale of a Gourmoo Cookoff Champion.” She published some fantastic shots from set, including a shot of me with the cast and a picture (that I just have to attach here too) of our quadrant-fied monitor which proves that I really know how to get some handsome coverage with four cameras.

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I had a marvelous time directing GOURMOO COOKOFF. Check out the premiere episode (it went live today!) in which the contestants attempt appetizers and let me know what you think!

The Appetizers Episode includes treats like…

The awesome cast of contestants who had to submit videos of themselves, rally online voters to pick their video instead of all the other submissions, and receive our judges' vote to be finalists on the show

Our panel of expert judges who love food and being honest about it with our contestants: Chef Lala (recently on the Today Show), food blogger Kristy Bernardo, and Chef Marlon Alexander (fresh from touring with KISS!).

New episodes will be released every Wednesday through mid-March. I can’t spill the beans on who wins the big prize (a culinary dream vacation!), but I can tell you it’s a great series with lots of laughs, twists and great cooking featuring lactose-free ingredients.

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Last week we color-timed the Lactaid-sponsored GOURMOO COOKOFF web series at In A Place Productions while Andy Hay (who just back from Sundance where he had two films playing, including the festival’s darling LIKE CRAZY) cleaned up, sweetened and mixed our sound. It was an incredibly easy phase of post-production — which is the norm when I get to work with this aces team of awesome post peeps. Heck, we got ahead of schedule because everyone is so badass.

Today we delivered the gorgeous looking and sounding FINAL VERSIONS of all five episodes!

I’ll let you know the second the series is available for viewing on Moovision.

Doritos® issued a challenge for fans to write, shoot and submit their best idea for a Doritos® commercial. Over 5,000 entries were submitted and the list has been narrowed down to five finalists. Now it’s time for YOU to decide that “Pug Attack” should be sprung on the approximate 106.5 million people who will watch the Super Bowl. The top 3 vote-grabbing commercials will be air during Super Bowl XLV! Click here to Vote!

This means that as JR and I work on the final tweaks to the GOURMOO COOKOFF episodes,* he’s responding to support from pug-lovers worldwide and taking calls from the press. Ahem, I believe the Wall Street Journal is calling later this after. YES!!!

The best news? “Pug Attack” is hilarious. I cracked up the first time I saw — litarally LOLed. This is not the situation in which you vote for your friend’s video because it’s your friend’s video. Nope. You vote for “Pug Attack” because it’s good. You can hold your head high and support this pug with pride.

There’s more: if any of the top 3 commercials is selected as the best by USA Today Ad Meter, Doritos® will award the makers of that commercial $1,000,000! A second place selection wins $600,000 and a third place selections wins $400,000. If the 3 Doritos® commercials take USA Today Ad Meter’s top 3 spots then everyone wins an extra $1,000,000!

*The five GOURMOO episodes are coming along beautifully! Everyone on the team is so happy with the shows, and I’m thrilled with everything from Chris Westlake‘s music to our host Eric Rosen‘s performance to the lovable contestants and judges to the perfect makeup by Desirae Cherman to the gorgeous sets by Scott Enge.

Judge Kristy and I at wrap - tired but exhilarated from shooting the finale episode!

I’ve been MIA from my blog because we went into pre-pro and production on a new Moovision project. This time the web series was a competition cooking show called GOURMOO COOKOFF. This summer, we filmed a teaser video to ignite interest in the show and elicit online submissions. The teaser was fun to film and was mostly about introducing the world to the show and Eric Rosen, our amazing host and food/wine/travel writer.

The show was an ABSOLUTE BLAST to shoot! Our stars were four real-life cooks, selected from user-generated submissions. They were so positive, fun, gracious and talented in the kitchen. Thank you Laurie, Morena, Nicole and Robert for being wonderful to work with and for teaching me a few things about cooking!

Similarly, I adored our judging panel – celebrity chef and cookbook author Chef Lala, celebrity chef Marlon Alexander (fresh off cooking for KISS on their last tour) and popular food blogger and personal chef Kristy Bernardo. I was delighted by how fast the judges clicked with each other and became a perfect panel of opinions – they respected one another while always bringing their own individual opinions. They offered expert opinions full of insight, inspiration, and humor.

Plus we had four cameras rolling pretty much ALL the time and an excellent crew of tried ‘n true talents and new faces I hope work with again and soon. It all adds up to one thing:

I KNOW this show is going to be great.

I go into the edit room to begin the director’s cut a week from today.

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The Lactaid-sponsored web channel Moovision that I’ve been working on since April launched last week! All video content on the site was directed by me; I also helped out with much of the scripting. The channel is home to three web series:

1. MOOLAH! is a traveling dairy-themed game show set outside of our moo-velous Moomobile (ice cream truck transformed into a cow). We awarded thousands of dollars to milk-savvy contestants in Boston and Miami this summer. YOU can win Amazon gift cards right NOW (until 1/10/11) by playing MOOLAH! online. Seriously, click-click and graze into some green!

2. MOO NEWS is a WEEKEND UPDATE for the dairy world. Definitely check out the “Lydia Sighting” episode — it has a Facebook Connect function meaning it seamlessly integrates names and pictures from your Facebook page into the video.

3. GOURMOO COOKOFF, hosted by the dashing and delictable Eric Rosen, is a lactose-free cooking show with a grand prize of a dream culinary vacation! We will be shooting this winter in LA and are currently running a User Generated Contest to help us select our contestants for the show. Submit a video and get on the show!

Here’s a little taste of MOOLAH!

As usual, I learned a ton on this project, but mostly I feel so grateful for the opportunity to work with my producers Michele and Gabe. I have known them both for a long time, but this my first opportunity to work with them in production. They certainly delivered their end of the bargain. I hope that, in their eyes, I did too because I can’t wait for the next chance to work with them.

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I was put on a jury on Monday so I’ve been unexpectedly serving the American justice system all week. I can’t wait to talk about the trial and the experience after we come to a verdict.

While doing my civil duty, my post team and I were galloping down the homestretch on the Lactaid “Moovision” project that I’ve been on since April. On Friday, we deliver two webseries and a teaser video for a third series that we’re shooting in December.

Thus, this week, before and after my court hours, I went to In A Place Productions and worked with the extradoinary color-correction team consisting of Milton and Augie. Despite my Boston DP’s complaints about the cameras we used, we were lauding them this week. It’s amazing the amount of information Canon’s 5D, 7D, and 1D’s captured. Milton was able to transform cringe-worthily overexposed shots into glorious images! Thank you In a Place peeps!

Meanwhile, I collaborated with Chris Westlake via text messages from the courthouse and phone calls at the lunch hour to guide him with small revisions on the three final music cues. Luckily, Chris and I have a shorthand after doing so many projects together.

Starting Sunday, another usual suspect joined the post team — Mr. Andy Hay! Andy and I did our spotting session before the week began so he could dig into the sound design and mix asap. He’s managed miracles with fixing the sound messes our Boston mixer left us. The last one of the ten to-be-delivered videos is coming in momentarily.

And, I finished reading THE HANDMAID’S TALE by Margaret Atwood, which will be a new favorite for me. I devoured the novel, but the ending is driving me nuts. Eventually, I’ll probably decide it’s a perfect conclusion, but, right now, I want more. I care about our narrator and want the closure of knowing her fate. Though the point is probably that she doesn’t know it so I’m more “with” her than ever and, really, the story is everything that happened before those last pages, how she’s evolved, but… still… I want the bow.

Next week I’ll get back to work on my next feature, the UNTITLED EARTHQUAKE MOVIE, but, rightly so with the Moovision delivery and jury duty, we paused it.

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JR just asked, “Should I start exporting these babies?” My response, “Yes!” And so we began outputting the four Moo News episodes we’ve been working on all week!

By tonight, we’ll have output all TEN videos: four MOO NEWS (comedic, mock news show about dairy happenings, ex. Investigative Report – Do Milk Baths Really Make Your Skin Softer), five MOOLAH! (traveling milk-themed gameshow set out of a truck we customized into a cow), and the teaser video for our lactose-free cooking show GOURMOO that will be be shot in November.

It’s been an exciting but exhausting week. Each series has a completely different personalities – different format, style, and objectives – which translates to a lot of varied needs in music, motion graphics, editorial choices, brands of brain power, etc. Luckily, all the initial feedback has been doable and totally reflective of the fact that we’ve all been working together on this project since April. We’re on the same page.

Low res screen grab of MOOLAH! in Boston

Personally, some of my favorite aspects of these cuts are the motion graphics for MOOLAH! — a tiny replica of the cow truck zooms across the screen, splaying money as it goes. Once it “parks” it becomes the ever present “money won” counter at the bottom of the screen.

I also love the music for the Call to Action. Chris (composer) and I have been talking about this track since June. Back then, we recognized how music-driven this video was and decided that instead of waiting for picture-lock, he should do the skeleton composition first and that JR (editor) would cut to that. An unorthodox approach that truly paid off – the cuts are great and the music is addictively good… and this is for an 40 second teaser video!

Finally, MOO NEWS, the most scripted of all the content, was a ball to put together and see how JR’s crackerjack editing pace quick and the jokes rolling. Plus, his voice over performance as the Talent Scout auditioning a dairy cow is brilliant.

That all said, I’m looking forward to a weekend of birthday parties, work on my next script idea and memorizing for officiating Kristen and Seth’s wedding next weekend. Oh geez… I still need a dress for the ceremony…

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Miami episode shoot was fantastic – no rain, no Moolah! truck stuck in the sand, no overtime, no over budget, no shortage of contestants and TONS of great moments and even a $300 winner! ($300 is the most a team can win). However, the start of the day was tough. Without a familiar crew, a tech scout, an AD, or a pre-production meeting with crewheads, and with the challenge of producing and shooting a live event that has never been rehearsed, the first half of the day had some stumbles to say that least. The crew rallied and with Gabe and my direction were able to find our way through the growing pains.

By afternoon, we got in a rhythm and cranked through contestants, draw big crowds, and get covered by the Miami Herald. I’m so impressed

Our host (Coronado) and his co-star, the Moomobile.

withCoronado’s (our host) ability to perform on the fly and engage strangers and pull a crowd, he’s the PERFECT guy for this role. Apparently the spectators thought so too. Check out the pics of him signing cowbells for little girls asking for his autograph.

I can’t wait to see how great everything goes in Boston now that we’ve run the show once. After that shoot, I want to do a post about the differences in directing something like MOOLAH! (live, game show, in public with the public) and scripted, narrative stuff. They inform each other but are completely and “udderly” different.

Wish me luck this Saturday!

Career turning point for Coronado – he’s signing autographs!

They only made it to question #4.

Coronado rallies the crowd with “moo” contest. Best “moo-er” gets the last cowbell.

First time I’ve worn a dress to set. Not the first time I’ve worn a fedora.